You would have thought that generally, and in these strange times even more so, I would have turned for comfort to the radio. I am after all a child of the radio. When I was growing up all we had was the radio and a limited menu of choices it was too.
The thing is, as far as the radio was concerned, as our main (only) source of entertainment, I didn’t know any better. And for a long time neither did anybody else. It dawned on me round about the turn of 50s into 60s that this was entirely true. It was the radio or nothing for all of us. But then I realised on the media front something was going off that didn’t include me. All my friends had TVs and I didn’t. It was only by making a dubious, even Faustian pact with the Devil, aka my mother, that we got a TV in 1961.
The deal was that we would get a TV if I had piano lessons. Doesn’t sound too terrible does it? But, in those days, I really didn’t want to play the piano but hey, needs must. The irony is that now I get more pleasure from playing the piano (sorry, ‘keys’, in modern parlance) than watching television. Who knew? Maybe my mother did. Proved right again.
Anyway, the point is, for a long time all I had was the radio and mostly the Home service, quaint sounding isn’t it and the Light programme. There was also a third programme, no that was the name of it, but it was all classical music so that didn’t count. I think I’ve got that right, let me know if I haven’t.
So it was either the Light programme or the Home service from the BBC that had the programmes I loved. Mostly comedy – Round the Horne: Navy Lark: Beyond our Ken; The Clitheroe Kid; Hancock’s Half Hour and many more, all on at 2 pm on a Sunday as I recall. There was also a bit later the legendary Goon Show. Not much music and what there was (Family Favourites) wasn’t worth turning on. Radio Luxembourg came later.
So what’s your point, you’re asking? Simply that I grew up listening to the radio and now I rarely do. True I occasionally listen to Radio 4 Extra, a Sherlock Holmes episode last week. But not much. And even less or rather not at all, to podcasts.
Also I have occasionally tried to ‘get into’ audio books. Like a whole CD of Dracula and a few other well-known audio versions of books. I’m a big fan of Dracula and various ghost stories written by CD James, Charles dickens, etc. but I’ve never finished any of these CDs. So my track record is poor and I really don’t know why.
I do think apart from having Classic FM on in the background as, incidentally, it is now, it’s hard to have the radio on and do what I do – play music, write blogs and read books. If, like a friend of mine, who I’ve mentioned before although he has no idea that I do mention him, you work on your DIY projects on the farm – summerhouse building, garden arbours, brick-walling, then having the radio works great. Even Test Match Special (TMS) when there’s cricket being played. Not now obviously. I don’t even listen to that and I love cricket – mostly.
I only mention this now because there were several pages of The Observer devoted to podcasts (see above for front page image) and it made me think again. I remembered that a few years ago now I attended a Guardian Masterclass on starting your own podcast. I even wrote a blog about the podcast. I made one, an interview with my sister-in-law.
I thought that podcasting might be a good way of expanding my blog empire. And an appropriate retirement activity. This on the grounds that another friend (I have so many) had suggested that I could do a Lake Wobegone Days type broadcast. Garrison Keiller (the writer) was, and still is, a hero of mine, so I thought, well, that could be very good. Hence the course. It didn’t work out mainly because it was an awful lot of work compared with putting out a blog.
The other little coincidence here was one related to my publishing in Ebook form and paperback our adventures in the vineyard. Entitled sensibly enough, The Vineyard Years. Available on Amazon for the modest sum of… But you know all that. The relevance here is that my son-in-law mentioned that audio books (yes, again) were all the thing now and that I should consider an audio version to go along with the book versions. This despite my poor record in the past. You can see how this is all coming together. You can’t? No neither can I truth be told. But press on.
So the idea of the podcast died. Now I’m not saying it has been resurrected with the Observer article because reading reminded what a faff it all was. But it did raise the question again, the one I’m sharing with you now about why I didn’t listen to podcasts (as opposed to produce them)?
After all the article stated that this is ‘boom time’ for the podcast. 12.5% of the population listened to podcasts these days and that these people listened to on average 7 podcasts a week. Furthermore that there was the small matter of 900,000 podcasts to choose from. A far cry from the Home service and the Light programme.
And perhaps therein lies the problem for me. Apart from the ease of access (not easy for me), there is the sheer overwhelming choice and variety of options for listening. When in the name of all that is audio am I going to find the time to listen to all those?
So I read the article entitled, Listen Up, and, for a short while, I thought this is the time to re-discover my interest in all things audio. Here we all are with hours of lock-down boredom to fill and a whole world of audio experiences to fill and rekindle (no pun intended) my love for the wireless. That’s what we used to call it. And yet, despite the article and all today’s modern options,, it’s just not happening for me. I wonder why?